Do you love watching anime online but can’t seem to find any reliable websites? Have you noticed that countless sites stream movies but almost none stream anime?
Since there is a high demand for these websites but not many are out there, now is the perfect time for you to create yours. Not only will you be able to enjoy your favorite anime shows, but you’ll also be making a killer profit along the way.
So if you want to learn how to start an anime website with step-by-step instructions, this is the guide for you. You’ll see where and how to buy a domain, how to build a website, choose a theme, find, and add your anime content. By the end, you’ll have a perfectly optimized site that no anime lover will be able to resist.
Navigation of Contents
1. Finding a Domain
Finding a unique yet catchy domain name is the first step to making your website stand out. You should first start by researching which keywords best describe your site and picking the one that makes the most sense. Then, incorporate it into your domain name in a way that will tell your viewers what the site’s about and that they can watch their favorite anime series there.
For your anime streaming website, you should come up with a list of about a dozen different domain names. These should include terms like: “stream,” “anime,” “series,” “watch,” “free,” or even some synonyms. By choosing one of these terms, others will know what services they can get from the domain name alone.
Once you’ve picked out the name you find most suitable, it’s time to find a domain extension. Keep in mind that the “.com” ones seem most trustworthy, but they’re also probably the hardest to get your hands on. If you know where your target audience lives, try using the extension for that country, as it’ll improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
2. Hosting Your Website
Now that you have your name, it’s time to find your site a home. There are two options to choose from: free onshore and paid offshore web hosting.
Here’s the deal, you can certainly try free web hosting, and no one can stop you. However, you won’t be the owner of your website, the host can spam you with hundreds of ads, and your speed will be painfully slow.
On the other hand, with a reliable offshore host, you’ll have a stable connection, good latency, and high bandwidth. What’s more, if you want to protect your identity and have complete control over your content and ads, going offshore is a must.
An offshore host can, to a certain extent, protect you from the copyright and DMCA claims. For example, a provider like IP Hoster, AbeloHost will keep your site up even when you receive a CDSA takedown. You will also get more storage space for your video and audio files, unlike with a free host.
3. Making a Website
To make your streaming site, you’ll have two distinct methods to choose from:
- Making one from scratch
- Using premade, customizable themes
For the sake of argument, let’s say you want to make your site all by yourself. First, unless you have serious front-end and back-end skills, you’ll have to hire a team of web designers to make it. Even though your website will be unique, building it this way is a long and expensive process.
On the other hand, you could get a readily-made theme that you can customize to reflect what you want. By doing so, you’ll be saving a lot of money and time, and you can focus on more important things.
4. Buying and Choosing an Anime Theme
If you decide to go with a premade theme, you’ll get to choose from a wide variety of templates. When starting your anime website, you can either choose an HTML template or a WordPress theme. And for those who’ve never made websites before, WordPress is a far better option since it’s more intuitive and user-friendly.
When you start tinkering with your site, you’ll see that there’s a selection of thousands of themes. you can easily search WordPress video streaming themes online.
However, if you’re looking for something more anime-oriented, you can go for one of the most popular anime WordPress themes. On the other hand, if you’ve gone with an HTML website, but we really don't recommend it for individuals or small teamwork.
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Customizing a Theme
Now that you have your domain, host, and theme, it’s time to start customizing and making it your own. First, you should start by designing and uploading a unique and eye-catching logo, as well as a memorable tagline.
What’s more, there are plenty of other things you can tweak on WordPress, like colors, widgets, headers, and more. You should also replace the dummy text and tell your viewers a bit more about your anime streaming site.
5. Finding Anime Content for Your Website
To start, you can buy the original content directly from its distributor. However, that is the more expensive option and not the best choice when you’re first starting your website.
On the other hand, you can let independent creators post content after having signed a Terms of Use Contract. The contract covers ownership rights so that you’re not financially liable for streaming.
Also, make sure that people sign a contract similar to the Terms of Use before they start streaming. By doing so, they acknowledge that they’re aware of legal repercussions if they choose to redistribute your content.
Finally, you can use pirated movie versions or embed videos that you’ve taken from different sites. This method is the cheapest and possibly the easiest since you don’t have to sign any contracts or pay fees.
6. Adding Content to Your Website
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Uploading
When you upload content directly from a server to a website, you can control which ads you want to feature in the video player and how far apart they will be.
However, this isn’t the most beginner-friendly option as you’ll need a lot of storage space, and the upkeep is pretty expensive. It’ll also be challenging to make any money from ad revenue in the beginning since your VPS storage has to run at 100 Mbps. Even though most offshore hosting companies have this kind of space, you’ll need more soon.
So if you want to choose uploading as your preferred method for adding content and have a decent streaming speed, you’ll need unlimited traffic and 10 Gbps minimum. Keep in mind that these features can set you back around $50 each month.
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Embedding
If you decide to embed your videos, your visitors will be watching content that someone uploaded, but in your video player. Embedding videos makes it easier to turn a profit, and you won’t be legally responsible if there’s copyright infringement.
But since the videos aren’t yours, someone can easily take them down without your knowledge or consent. Also, you can’t control their quality or which ads are playing.
7. Optimizing and Growing Your Website
Your first move should be to start posting a concise but well-thought-out description of your website on different forums and social media platforms. Some of the most popular ones include:
- Quora
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Link Building
A great way to make your website rank is to try to get as many backlinks as you can. So each time you post on any forum or website, include a link that leads back to your site.
For example, to attract more visitors, you can also make lists of the “Top 10 Slice of Life Animes” and post them on niche websites. For each series or movie that you recommend, leave a link that will lead back to you.
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Content
If you want better site visibility and to be featured on Google’s first page, you also need to focus on other aspects of SEO. For example, you can start by creating content for highly-anticipated anime that are due to come out soon.
Namely, you can write about an anime’s plot summary or get article ideas from some of your long-tail keywords. For example, you can write an article about the new season of “Death Note” and include some keywords like “death note season two plot” or “watch death note season 2 episode 1.”
However, it’s essential that you do proper, in-depth keyword research, as well as create long page titles. These should include other keywords that are specific to your anime streaming website.
To find the right ones, you can use websites like Google Keyword Planner to see how often people search for those keywords. Then, find the keywords you’ll most likely be able to rank for and use them as a guide for creating future article topics.
By following all of our advice, you will slowly but surely improve your Google ranking and build domain authority.
Final Thoughts
As all anime fans know, there aren’t enough reliable streaming websites that include both the classics and new releases. They either have a ton of broken links or poor quality videos that are almost unwatchable. So why not take advantage of this and create the ultimate anime streaming website to beat them all?
You won’t need much to start — just a catchy domain name and a reliable hosting company. Then, you can focus on customizing your themes and slowly building your content library.
In the end, the more effort you invest in your site and post regularly, as well as advertise in the right places, the better your chances are of turning a big profit and attracting visitors.